1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for providing content, such as a music track, and to a method for providing a playlist of the content.
2. Description of the Related Art
Music players containing a mass storage device, such as a hard disk device or a nonvolatile memory, are becoming commonplace. Such playback apparatuses are capable of accommodating or storing a huge number of music tracks, such as thousands to tens of thousands of music tracks.
For example, for a hard disk device having a capacity of 100 gigabytes, when each music track is three minutes long, 3,000 or more music tracks can be stored. In addition, if digital audio data of a music track is encoded in accordance with an encoding method, such as MP3 (MPEG-1/Audio Layer 3) or ATRAC™ (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding), the amount of data can be compressed to one-tenth to one-twelfth of the original amount of data. Thus, 30,000 or more music tracks can be stored.
Thus, users of such music players are able to keep music tracks close to them or able to carry music tracks with them. Such users are able to listen to a favorite music track from among the music tracks.
However, when a large number of music tracks are stored in a playback apparatus, as described above, it is difficult for a user to find a particular music track from among the large number of music tracks. In addition, it often happens that the user does not remember what music tracks are stored unless all the titles of the stored music tracks are displayed. Furthermore, since there are many music tracks that the user does not know and many music tracks are released every day, even if the number of music tracks that the user can carry with him or her increases, storing all the music tracks and remembering all the stored music tracks is very difficult.
Methods for preparing a playlist are considered. In these methods, a playlist is a list of titles of music tracks selected by a user's preference. For example, a user collects titles of music tracks that the user wants to listen to when driving along the coast, and a list of the collected titles functions as a playlist. Thus, the user is able to listen to a music track that suits the mood and condition of the user at that time by performing music selection in accordance with such a playlist.
In addition, if such playlists are capable of being exchanged between friends and being browsed by the friends, such exchange and browse can help selection of a music track. Thus, users are able to easily select a music track that they want to listen to.
In addition, if a community is formed by members having similar preferences and information is exchanged between the members, a member receives the benefit of having a wide range of preferences given by other members.
Known technologies are described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication Nos. 2004-13653 and 2004-46575.